EDC 102 Class 4: What can we find out about our schools?

So far, we have read about teachers and the teaching profession and brainstormed questions about quality teaching & schools. Today we will learn to use the class website and begin to explore the types of data we might use to describe our schools and their districts.

Objectives/Goals:

• Use URIteacherknowledge to navigate and accumulate information
• Explore information available on RI schools

Resources

• Top 10 - Good Schools
• Top 10 - Good Teachers (Done. Way to go Meghan!) - fogleman
• Top 10 - Bad Teachers
• Student Profiles
• Context Report Assignment Sheet
• Information That Works
• Kids Count
• US Census Data

Activities

1. - Wikispace demo

• Navigating to class home page
• Creating a page
• Editing a page
• Adding a hyperlink
• Adding a picture
• Linking to another URIteacherknowledge page

2. Work in pairs to create profile pages. (Posters should post Monday's top 10 lists first.)
3. Have students explore available school data.

• go to infoworks page
• click on several links for data. Try to understand what the representation are trying to communicate by discussing your ideas with your partner. How can this data inform a report on a particular school. (We will formalize this process next time.

By Friday

• Post your profile (w/ picture preferably)
• Read others' profiles. Use the edit button to reformat, correct spelling errors, etc.
• Explore the data websites for ~ 30 minutes
• Think about a school you might want to explore.